Author: Amanda Viviers

Place: Kym’s Office pt 1/ Milkd pt 2

Poison: Diet Coke/ Long Mac

Favourite Things: Apple Computers/ Christmas….

I have just finished reading Steve Stockman’s book ‘Walk On’, a commentary about the life and journey of the band U2. With my friends all flying off to different parts of Australia (excuse me Kym, I completely miss you!) to watch U2 concerts this week, this post is apt for those who have missed out…Or even those who have chosen not to be a part of the Australian U2 obsession.

A speech that Bono made on New Years’ concert goes like this…(pge 82)

‘Here she comes: the future. Forget about the past. We’re gonna celebrate the future…Here’s to the future! The only limitations are the limits of our imaginations. Dream up the kind of world you want to live in. Dream out loud at high volume. That’s what we do for a living…’

Then the writer Steve Stockman goes on to say this (which when I read it a few weeks ago and it completely blew me away!)

‘Imagine a world where the blacks in South Africa could learn to forgive and live alongside their oppressors. Imagine a white government in Pretoria that could see a new South Africa with, by some sort of miracle, Nelson Mandela was the president. Imagine that there could be a ceasefire in Northern Ireland where the parlamilitaries would lay down their weapons and sit together in a new Northern Ireland government.

Imagine if enemies can be loved. (Luke 6:27)

Imagine if the hungry could be fed (Luke 6: 21)

Imagine if the meek could inherit the earth (Matt 5: 5)

Imagine a world where the first would be last and the last would be first (Luke 13:30)

Imagine.

Without the turbo charged engine engine of imagination, nothing can change in our world. God told his people that they would dream dreams and see visions (Joel 2: 28)

When I read this passage it stopped me in my tracks. I love this passion towards the future. How often do we spend our lives looking in the rear view mirror? We drive through life looking backwards, regretting and guilt driven with all the things we did wrong, the words we shouldn’t have said, the people we have left in our wake.

Yet imagining the future to be one that is bright, to be one full of hope, walking in the strength and grace that has so liberally been extended to you.

Imagine the future. A bright, loud, bold and fresh one full of hope, love and strength!

Imagine

A

Place: Mum’s House

Poison: Diet coke

Favourite Things: My fam…

Well today is our weekly event (although I really only get there probably once a month) Family night! We all come together brothers, sisters, dads, mums, aunties, uncles, cousins, God-kids, friends, lovers and whoever wants to come and hang.

Family night is an institution in our family. Not a pressure thing, where if you don’t come, you get nailed. Its a ‘I want to be there phenonomon!’…Family night is so famous that my friends ask to come along. There is toasts to what has happened that week, there is yummy/random/comfort food, the tv is in the background, the kitchen is the place to be… It is quite wild in fact.

I love family night and I love my family more.

So here’s a toast to the Powell’s, Smith’s and Giles families. I would not want to have grown up and do not want to grow old with anyone else.

I’m cooking roast, granma’s 81 and my dad’s in town. A recipe for a lot of laughs, some toasts to life and cuddles with my neices and nephews.

We will miss you tonight Jeremy and Jackson (my big bro, and beautiful nephew)

Forever yours

A

Place: My Office

Poison: Diet Coke

Favourite Things: Tshirt from Annie

(Ban Meter- Mercy Village, Lom Sak, Thailand, June 06.)

I have had a very calm, chilled out sort of day with much reflection. The thoughts that have rambled through my mind have mostly been centred around the people in my life and my interaction with them.

Most of my heartache has been caused by people. Most of my celebrations have been with people. Most of my annoyances have been caused by people. Most of my victories have been won with people.

People are the point of life. Without having others to walk alongside, what is truly the meaning of life? Yet people are the ones who cause the most pain and conflict in our worlds…

I found this poem in an Oprah magazine and I ripped it out an put it up near my desk in my office to remind me what life is truly about.

For those days when someone has complained one too many times. For those days when our family burdens us one brick too many. For those times when you feel so alone, yet there are thousands of people swarming around you…

This is a call to the living

To those who refuse to make peace with evil,

With the suffering and the waste of our world.

This is a call to the human, not the perfect,

To those who know their own predjudices,

Who have no intention of becoming prisoners of their own limitations.

This is a call to those who remember the dreams of their youth,

Who know what it means to share food and shelter,

The care of children and those who are troubled,

To reach beyond barriers of the past

Bringing people to communion.

This is a call to the never ending spirit

Of the common man, his essential decency and integrity,

His undending capacity to suffer and endure,

To face death and destruction and to rise again

And build from the ruins of life.

This is the greatest call of all

The call to a faith in people…

 

This is what I live my life for…

Affected

A

Place: My Office

Poison: Diet Coke

Favourite Things: ummmm not sure today

How broken are we all? How broken am I? very…

Each of us carry many backpacks filled with the memories and wounds from past hurt and brokeness. Over the last few days in many different ways I have met people whose expectations have not matched up and have felt really despondant and dissapointed with life.

What I have found, in my life, the times of my deepest dissapointment have been days or seasons where my perspective is warped and so often the expectations and the hopes are the ones that I have set up for myself rather than by others.

Does this make sense? Basically my thought is- lifes perspective is changed by the expectations and goals that I set for myself rather than the ones given to us by others. And when we freak out, blaming others for missing the mark, blaming others for what they do wrong, blaming others full stop, it has more to do with what is happening in our world, than theirs.

That’s why I am so enlivened by the concept and reality of grace. No matter what happens, no matter how disappointed we maybe with ourselves or others, grace covers and makes up for where we lack.

Its not a soft, fairy, weak grace! It is a strong, relevant, raw and tough one.

Live life with a knowlege of the grace that has been extended to you. It will shape the perspective you have of others and how you respond to everything that happens in your world.

 

(photos. venue three. my party. courtesy of Scott!)

Gracefull!

A

Place: My Office

Poison: Water

Favourite Things: New blue and white handbag (sort of weird camera case!)

Last night we took the crewbies down to the airport to go back to Brisbane, Sydney and Auckland New Zealand. It was so hilarious, as we walked to Duende (a great tapa’s resteraunt) Claudine and I had the best talk ever, then we went to the airport and all lied on the ground in the waiting area and just hung out.

Some goodbyes are tragic, some are full of sighs of relief, some are grief stricken and some are life changing. Last nights goodbye summed up our week so perfectly. Simply doing life together. Lots of laughs, lots of great conversations, connection and intential encouragement, that hopefully will last till we all see each other again.

I am such a firm believer in saying goodbye well, as you never know what could happen before you meet again.

Whether its in the morning as you say goodbye to your spouse, whether its in the evening as you say goodnight to your loved ones, whether its saying goodbye to a friend who you don’t get to see in the flesh often but walk intentionally day by day with them through the life.

Communicate your love deeply, communicate your thoughts celarly, extend your heart of grace liberally, as I believe life is so short and so not worth wasting on lots of small and insignificant intentions.

Goodbye my travelling willburies!

Hope to be all in the same country and state sometime soon…

All my love

Tenderly

A